皆 - All Right, EVERYONE Line Up!

Readings & Meanings:

カイ

みな、みんな

all, everything, everyone

Common Usage:

皆

皆勤

皆無

Examples:

皆で協力して掃除をした。

皆勤賞をとる。

そのような事実は皆無だ。

Translations:

With everyone cooperating, we finished cleaning.

I won the award for perfect attendance.

No such facts are in evidence.

Radical:

I already dealt with this in the post on 階. But here is the explanation again.

比 is on the top of 皆, and we should know it from 比べる, to compare. 比 is a pictograph of two people lined up.

The bottom part of 皆 is a squished version of 自, self. It acts as an action indicator.

References:

http://www.kanjinetworks.com/indices/radindex.html
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/node/kanji/ka.htm